I have taught Greek at all levels from beginner through doctoral courses at Bob Jones University since 1982. I am probably best known as the author of the Reed-Kellogg-style sentence diagrams for the whole New Testament published in BibleWorks software. Close to 20 years ago, I suppose, I was fairly active on B-Greek--until my teaching duties and other responsibilities became too demanding for me to keep up with the list.

I was informed a few months ago that my teaching position is being eliminated, under budgetary pressures, at the end of this school year. At age 58, I would like to remain employed for at least a few more years in some capacity. As long as the economy remains sound, I don't expect to have difficulty providing life's basic necessities (depending on what works out for medical insurance, perhaps), but I do have a sense of calling to stay engaged in serious Greek studies if possible.

Because my plate is extremely full of daily responsibilities, I am not presently in a position to engage in general correspondence about the wide range of possibilities for remunerative engagement in Greek scholarship, research, or teaching. Since, however, this is the time of year when many schools are making hiring decisions for the coming school year, it seemed prudent for me to take time to post a notice here making my potential availability known.

Over the past year I have been developing BJU Seminary's first seminary-level online Greek exegesis courses. I can't say that I am excited at all about teaching online, but I do recall from Scripture that one who wishes to eat should expect to feel some sweat on his face! So pleasure is not the determinative criterion for me. One attraction of online teaching is the potential for not needing to relocate from our very settled and pleasing situation here in Greenville, SC. But I am willing to consider any and all open doors.

Assuming that I do become unemployed in as expected in May, at that point I will become much more intent on exploring some outside-the-box ideas with which I'm toying, and I will likely return to the list for more general discussion with anyone interested in corresponding. For now, I'm perfectly content to receive no time-consuming replies to this post except for any possible expressions of interest in my services.

Randy, I wish you the best (περὶ πάντων εὔχομαί σε εὑοδοῦσθαι) and recognize the tight spot vis-a-vis age and market openings.

I wish I could offer something, but I would need to ask a question not yet commonplace in the market:
How are your lecturing skills in Greek? I share this for younger scholars to take note and think towards the future.

Nice to see your name again. Yours is a good question, of course. I did not learn Greek in the conversational or immersion mode, so, while I can write Greek passably well within the limits of NT vocabulary, I don't speak the language with any fluency at all, and it's not likely at this age that I would develop adequate fluency within a time frame to make myself useful in a program like yours. So any teaching I do will have to be in the "old school" mode.

Nice to see your name again. Yours is a good question, of course. I did not learn Greek in the conversational or immersion mode, so, while I can write Greek passably well within the limits of NT vocabulary, I don't speak the language with any fluency at all, and it's not likely at this age that I would develop adequate fluency within a time frame to make myself useful in a program like yours. So any teaching I do will have to be in the "old school" mode.

Blessings!

Randy

Actually, you might be surprised how quickly you could pick it up. I took an online conversational course a few years ago, mainly to inform my own teaching, and even though it was just an hour a week, I was pleasantly surprised at the results (and I was a year or two younger at that point than you are now). ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν σοι χάριν πληθύναι καὶ τῆς τὰς ἐπιθυμίας καρδίας σου δώῃ...

You might also want to check with one or more of the many Facebook groups dealing with Greek and ask about posting your availability. There are, for instance, Ancient Greek-Comprehensible Input and Nerdy Language Majors, among others. Best wishes, and welcome to B-Greek!

Nice to hear from you, Paul. I hope you, Laurie, and family are all doing well--and that I haven't erred in my recollection of your wife's name! (Laurie Bartlett)

Thanks for thinking of me. I did receive an email from Mark Herbster. I think he plans to contact me by phone soon. There are some significant issues that make this prospect seem unlikely, but I'm not ruling it out by any means. I wonder whether YOU should be expressing interest in this position! I may ask Mark about this if/when he calls.

Some other things are in the works that appear promising at the moment. We shall see how the Lord leads.

Online is different to in-class face2face - but for some students it's the only way they'll get a higher education.
It's a lot more work for the students and the teacher, but that helps to cut down on the dilettantes and the slackers.
So look upon it as an outreach ministry
Somewhere the right door is going to open for you
Shirley Rollinson